Trading Up (52 page)

He came halfway into the room and the corners of his mouth twitched into a cold smile. “Ah yes,” he said in a voice with a slight English accent. “I see you have found refreshments.”

“This is Janey Wilcox,” Estella said, with far too much enthusiasm. There was an unpleasant dripping in the back of Janey’s throat; her hands suddenly felt clammy and she had the distinct feeling that she was going to vomit. She stared at Rasheed wide-eyed, wondering if her distress was obvious, but all Rasheed did was nod at her, his eyes flickering over her from the top of her head down to her shoes.

The man with him, the younger one, looked from Rasheed to the girls; he seemed unclear as to what was going on or what sort of protocol was expected of him. After an uncomfortable silence, he finally stepped forward and held out his hand. “Justin Marinelli,” he said with an American accent.

The American was wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses and a yellow tie, and for some reason Janey noticed that he had a wedding ring. As they shook hands, she suddenly had the crazy idea of throwing herself on his mercy, of begging him to take her out of there and take care of her and get her home, but then Rasheed was saying, “I will escort Mr. Marinelli to the door and then will return for a tour,” and the moment was gone.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Janey said vaguely, leaning against a chair.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Estella said, removing the tray from the shelf and quickly chopping out four more lines. “That happens to me all the time when I first do a hit—as soon as you do another line, you’ll feel better.” Janey took the tray from her and inhaled two lines, and as she did so, Estella said, “He liked you, I could tell.”

“He didn’t even shake my hand,” Janey said.

“He’s the richest man in the world,” Estella replied incredulously. “You can’t expect him to bother with things like
that
. He’s busy.”

“Too busy to shake hands?”

“Listen,” Estella said. “You can’t let him intimidate you. You’ve got to treat these rich guys like they’re ordinary. That’s the trick, you see? They secretly love it, because . . .”

At that moment, Rasheed returned. His dark eyes flicked to the unopened bottle of champagne, and he turned and clapped his hands and called out,

“Mohammed!” In a second, the man who had opened the door scurried into the 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 279

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room, but Estella was quicker, and with a great flourish she picked up the bottle of champagne and said, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Rasheed, I’ll do it. My mother used to work in a bar. You know? A place where people go and drink?”

“Yes, I know about bars,” Rasheed said, watching her out of narrowed eyes.

“But you never go to them,” Estella said, in the sort of joking tone one might use with a child. She turned to Janey as she wrenched the cork from the bottle. “He doesn’t drink, you know?” The cork popped out of the bottle with a spray of white foam, and Estella stepped back, laughing and holding the bottle high in her hand, the consummate party girl. “Should we use glasses, Rasheed? Or drink straight from the bottle?”

“Glasses please,” Rasheed said in a toneless voice.

Janey looked at Estella and saw with a pang of regret that she was probably the silliest girl she’d ever known. She wasn’t even sure that she liked her much, but she realized that now was not the time to be making judgments about Estella’s character, and on top of that she felt an almost insatiable craving for alcohol. She greedily took a glass of champagne from Estella’s hand and downed half of it, then refilled her glass to the brim. Rasheed turned and led them out of the room.

The “tour” of the suite was probably nothing more than a pretext for the sex act that might follow, and yet Rasheed dragged it out, explaining the history of the hotel, the furnishings, and the paintings, and Janey was taken aback by how much he knew—if she lived to be a hundred, she would never know as much as this man.

His knowledge only served to reinforce the realization that she’d barely been educated and probably never would be, and she wondered if she appeared as dumb as she felt. Estella wouldn’t stop making silly comments, and an unspoken competition developed between them—for every dumb comment Estella made, Janey tried to distinguish herself by asking an intelligent question. If Rasheed thought that she was a smart girl, if he saw that she was different from Estella . . .

At last they reached a large, tiled room containing a pool. This was the only private pool in a hotel suite in all of France, he told them; the tiles had been imported from Italy two hundred years ago and depicted Poseidon on the bottom of the pool. Janey had no idea who Poseidon was, but she squinted intelligently at the merman holding a trident, as Rasheed excused himself and motioned Estella to the other side of the pool.

A brief conference took place and Estella nodded. She returned to Janey’s side while Rasheed remained near the door.

“He likes you. He wants to show you his bedroom,” Estella whispered.

Janey had been dreading this moment, but surprisingly, when it came she felt not fear but a strange boldness, as if the normal boundaries that stood between her and life had been removed, and she turned to Estella and smiled. She had thought 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 280

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that she would refuse, but now she felt an odd eagerness for it. She strode toward Rasheed and as she approached, he nodded; as they passed out of the tiled room and into the hallway, he made the courtly gesture of taking her arm.

They entered a large bedroom with a huge canopied bed. As he motioned that she was to remove her underpants, Janey remembered that she was practically a vir-gin. She’d had sex exactly three times, with an American student from Rutgers University whom she’d met in Milan. The experience had been painful and mostly uninteresting, and it had astonished her that she seemed to have no emotional connection to the event. Each time it had taken place, she’d felt completely divorced from her body, as if she were floating above herself, watching the action with bored detachment—a fact not lost on the American student. He’d been insulted and incensed at her lack of response, and had finally accused her of being frigid. This had occurred at an outdoor café, where they were drinking coffee, and Janey had nearly cried out with the shame of it; for, not knowing any better, she was sure he was right. Speechless with horror, she had simply gotten up and left, and when she saw that he wasn’t going to follow her, she had cried. And then she’d thought about it a bit and decided that the problem was that she hadn’t really been the least bit attracted to him. He’d had a persnicketiness about him that bordered on the pathological—he was always washing his hands—and when they were at cafés he insisted on wiping his utensils with a wet nap, a package of which he carried in his knapsack.

And now, sitting on the bed, without her underpants on and with her ankles crossed, Janey watched Rasheed unzip his pants and felt the same curious detachment. She idly wondered what he might do, wondered if he would tie her up and ravish her. It didn’t strike her as an unpleasant idea, merely as something that was unlikely to happen, especially as Rasheed removed a pair of English boxer shorts and then carefully folded them on the bench at the end of the bed. He approached her and Janey saw that he had a hard-on and that his penis was bigger than the American student’s, with a dark brown shaft and a coffee-colored tip. He raised his hands—for a second, Janey thought he was going to kiss her—but all he did was unbutton the top three buttons of her dress. Reaching inside, he pulled out her breasts. He regarded them thoughtfully, but didn’t touch her. Then he pulled her skirt up and gently pushed open her legs. Janey let herself fall back on the bed.

She stared up at the canopy. It was minutely pleated and gathered in the middle, and Janey wondered how they managed to pleat such heavy fabric. She could feel his fingers exploring around down there and pushing into her vagina, and she heard him say, “Nice and tight—that is good,” but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with her. Then he hoisted himself up and pushed into her. It was unpleasant and slightly painful, and once again Janey wondered why everyone made such a big fuss 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 281

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about sex—surely he couldn’t be enjoying this any more than she was. She concentrated on the pleats above her head, thinking about how many people must have labored to make this canopy, and wondering if they knew where it would end up—

over the bed of one of the richest men in the world, who paid young women to let him put his penis in them—and in a minute or two, it was over.

She felt him pull out his penis and she sat up. He patted her leg and smiled—

his smile seemed genuine but cold—and he said, “Very good. We are finished.” For a moment, she felt outraged—was their interlude of no more significance to him than a coffee break?—and she wanted to cry out, “Was that
it
?” But there was something about him that made her hold her tongue, despite what Estella had told her.

She hopped off the bed and pulled on her underpants. He carefully put on his boxers and his pants, and, tucking in his shirt, walked to a desk on which sat a plain leather briefcase. He opened it, and Janey was startled to see that it was filled with money.

It was exactly the sort of thing one sees in movies but doesn’t expect to ever see in real life. Janey couldn’t see the denomination, but the money was in American dollars, bundled and neatly stacked. The experience of seeing a real briefcase filled with money
alone
was almost worth the price of entry, she thought, and she wanted to laugh with glee. For a second, she had a vision of herself knocking Rasheed over, grabbing the briefcase, and running out of there. There had to be at least $40,000 or $50,000—and surely the richest man in the world wouldn’t miss a few thousand dollars. It would mean so little to him and so much to her . . .

His fingers fumbled slightly with a stack of bills, and then he turned and walked back to her, subtly extending his hand toward hers. Janey took the money.

She didn’t want to appear greedy, but she couldn’t help glancing down at it—there were three one-thousand-dollar bills in her hand.

She had never held so much money, and for a moment, she thought she might faint. Rasheed took her by the shoulders and pulled her forward, kissing her on each cheek. And then he said the strangest thing: “I hope I pleased you.” Janey looked at him full in the face and her eyes widened. She wanted to laugh out loud, but knew it was bad enough that she was staring at him with what must be an incredulous expression on her face. How could a man this rich, this intelligent, be so stupid as to think that he might actually have pleased her? . . . And then it all came together in her mind as sharply as the point of a pencil: So this was what it was about, and it was all so unbelievably easy. She was suddenly overwhelmed with her own sense of power, and glancing down at the money again, she lied as easily as an amoral child, in words she would come to use over and over again . . .

“Oh yes, Rasheed,” she said. “You were absolutely wonderful.” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 282

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His face lit up with pride as he took her arm. Leaning in conspiratorially, he said, “Next time, maybe you will move around a little. To please me?” So there
was
to be a next time. And why not? Giving his arm a little squeeze, she said, “Of course, Rasheed.”

“And now I will return you to your friend.”

As they entered the large salon, he said, “I hope you enjoyed your tour, Miss Wilcox.” Turning, with a courtly nod of his head, he added, “Please excuse me. I have some business to attend to, but you must stay and enjoy some refreshments.”

“Thank you,” Janey said. She glanced up and saw Estella staring at her from the other side of the room, her eyes filled with curiosity. But thankfully, she said nothing, as there were now two young men in the room, drinking champagne and snort-ing coke.

Janey awoke the next day at seven in the evening. Her throat was so dry she could barely breathe, and one nostril was completely blocked. The other nostril made a watery, wheezing sound when she blew out of it, and her whole body felt weak, as if she had the flu and were suffering from a high fever. She managed to get out of bed and, stumbling down the hall, made her way to the bathroom. There was music coming from the living room, and when she looked in, she saw the two young men from the night before, bent over a coffee table. The room reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat; there were ashtrays and glasses filled with cigarette butts. She shuddered with disgust and went quickly into the bathroom and shut the door.

She blew her nose, expelling hard, yellowish chunks of snot—it looked like pieces of the inside of her nose were coming out—and then she greedily drank from the tap, even though everyone knew that was a bad idea, and splashed her face with water. The end of the evening was a complete blank; she had no idea how she’d gotten home or ended up in her bed, but she was still wearing her underpants and a T-shirt, so that was good. Then she remembered the incident with Rasheed, and clutching her stomach, she sank to the floor with shame. How could she have done such a thing? And even worse, she’d agreed to do it again!

But gradually, some sort of self-protective reasoning took over, and she acknowledged that it hadn’t been all that bad, really, it hadn’t done any damage to her physically, plus she had three crisp one-thousand-dollar bills tucked away in the zippered pocket of the cheap purse she’d had since high school—and now she’d be able to buy a new one, a glorious Chanel bag like Estella’s. She picked herself up and drank from the tap again, then regarded herself closely in the mirror. She looked exactly the same as she had the day before.

She returned to her room, and as she got back into bed, Estella came in. She 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 283

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